Billingsgate Shoal (17 page)

I clutched the piling, panting and blowing as softly
as I could. Fortunately for me, a loud delivery truck came rattling
along the street above, and so hid any noises I was making. Within
half a minute the panting stopped. I clutched my numb fingers around
the craggy shells that covered the piling, which was as thick as a
telephone pole. I was glad the shells were there; they made it
easier, to hang on. I looked from under the pier back in the
direction I had come, and saw a thin beam playing along the water.
Flashlight. The beam came toward the pilings and I slid behind, out
of sight. It played along each one with monstrous slowness and
deliberation. It snaked around beneath the pier like the Serpent in
the Garden. As it approached my timber, I sucked in the biggest
breath I could manage and went under, holding onto the barnacles
tight to keep from floating up again. The cold water helped my
head—but the rest of me was shivering, the deep convulsive shiver
that tells you there is not much time left.

I saw the water above me glow bright green-gray with
streaks of silver—the shimmering of refracted light. But the light
stayed there. It would not leave, and I was running out of air, and
time. I knew if I surfaced, however quietly, Mr. X would spot me—see
the ripples in the water and catch a glimpse of my yellow
Windbreaker. Then what would happen? Whatever he had in mind, I was
in no condition to put up much of a struggle. The scrap in the
Schooner Race followed by the rap on the head followed by a
ten-minute dunking in the harbor was enough to take the tar out of
anybody—especially a guy pushing fifty. Would he bap me on the head
with a pole and watch me sink again? Did he have a gun? Or was this
person with the light some helpful soul who had seen me pitched in,
and wanted to help?

No. Certainly any helper or concerned passerby would
make a lot more noise—call for help, etc.—than the Quiet One with
the flashlight. Time was up; I had to move. I shoved away from the
piling and breast-stroked over to the next one.

Clutching it, I shoved off with all my strength—what
little there was left—and on to the next pole. This I latched on
to, surfaced and breathed. But I was careful, upon coming up, to make
myself breathe in a bit before exhaling. This insured there would be
no loud burst of expelled air. I breathed agonizingly slowly and felt
my heart pounding in my neck and head. The beam of light was just
moving away from the pole, and swung lazily back and forth across the
murky water. I was under a narrow pier, and therefore was unable to
look up and see Mr. X. On the other hand, he was unable to see me,
which was beneficial. I spotted an old fifty-gallon oil drum poking
itself out of the water at an angle a few feet away. I slid over to
it and felt rock against my side. I lay, halfway out of the water
behind the old drum, and waited until the light was switched off.
Then came the sound of feet from the top of the harbor wall. They
died away into the distance and I lifted my weary frame and stood'
up. I could scarcely stay on my feet. My legs were numb, and I rubbed
and pounded them. I had the worst headache I could remember. I had
begun to trudge along the bottom of the sea wall when in the
foot-deep water I heard footsteps again. They sounded remarkably
familiar—a heavy scuff. They died away. I waited. Then they came
back.

Jesus Christ. The guy was pacing the wall. Then there
could be no doubt. He wanted me dead. He was up there killing time to
make sure he was killing me. Then I remembered the faint sound I'd
heard just before getting mugged. It was a shoe scuff. Mr. X did not
have a firm step. He dragged his feet when he walked. A slovenly
habit, but then would you expect a bright, firm step from one who
does murder by stealth?

There was another sound too that I heard at regular
intervals: a nervous sniffing. A short sniff followed by a faint
clearing of the throat. I decided then and there to keep those sounds
fixed in my mind. If I ever got out of the harbor alive, I would find
Mr. X. And I would fix his wagon but good. .

The pacing continued. Once it stopped for a while and
I heard people walking past. They talked loudly and laughed a lot.
Probably just closing up some of the local bars. Then the footfalls
returned. Finally, I saw the light again, and snuggled down tight
behind the oil drum as the beam swept over me and along the pilings.
Then it played on the water for a few minutes, sometimes shining way
out over the water. Then it went out, the footfalls faded for the
last time, and I was alone under the pier.

I hoped.

After another half-hour's wait, I dragged and hopped
myself along in the shallow water until I came to the next pier.
There was a ramp leading right down to the water. Gloucester has huge
tides, and these floating angular ramps rise and fall with the water,
allowing people to get to their boats easily. I rolled onto the
floating platform and ground my way up the ramp slowly and quietly. I
couldn't feel my legs.

At the top I slid into the shadow of a boatyard shack
and waited. Nothing. Mr. X, convinced I was dead at the bottom of the
harbor, had finally departed. Freezing, I lurched and staggered along
the street. The Scout was parked where I'd left it. I didn't have the
keys; they were either in the hands of Mr. X or else left on the
pavement next to the car. In any case, I wanted to leave it exactly
as it was. I fumbled in my pockets. No wallet, which didn't surprise
me. My corpse, minus wallet, would inject the robbery motive. Also,
it let Mr. X and his associates know exactly who the nosy fellow in
the Schooner Race was. This did not set well with me at all. I
hurried on, hoping that a brisk walk would warm me. It was warm out
with no wind, which was lucky. Also lucky that I was wearing a wool
sweater beneath my Windbreaker. Wool, of all materials, is the only
one that is as warm wet as it is dry. My head and sides hurt
terribly, but I would be all right.

Twenty minutes later I found a phone booth. I had
deliberately slunk about to avoid police cars. I didn't want to be
seen by anyone. A plan was beginning to form in my hurt head. Slumped
into the phone booth, I let the door remain open so the light
wouldn't go on. I had change, and dialed our number preceded by 044—a
collect call that was a bit frenzied, but brief and to the point:

Mary was to make extra-sure all doors, windows, etc.,
were bolted and the dogs inside, freely roaming throughout the first
floor. Additionally, she was to keep my Browning 9-mm Auto at her
bedside. At my insistence she'd learned how to use it.

She was to call Jim DeGroot and tell him to pick me
up, in exactly the manner I would explain to her.

"I'll see you around three. Jim and I will sneak
in the back way. Remember, no lights."

"Are you all right, Charlie?"

"Just dandy. Good-bye."

It would take DeGroot an hour to arrive, but I
started on my way. I had a long walk.

I sat hunched, shivering, behind the short hedgerow
that lined the edge of Brown's Boatyard Annex. It seemed forever
before the red Olds wagon came cruising slowly along the street. In
two seconds, I was in the front seat, telling Jim to turn on the heat
full blast. I shivered until we were halfway home, then fell asleep.
He woke me up behind our garage, and had to help me up the stairs to
the kitchen door. I had stiffened up badly, and felt as if my body
had been used as a plaything by a pack of mandrills. My cast was
soft; I'd need a new one.

Mary pulled open the door even before we reached if
and let us in. She hugged me and I groaned. She put her arms around
my neck to kiss me and I groaned again. I told her to stop there. She
turned on the stove light and busied herself with a boiling kettle.
Soon each of us had a giant hot toddy cradled in our paws. I had shed
the cold garments for flannel PJs and a robe. Mary probed my skull
first and pronounced it intact.”

"The outside anyway. There's no telling about
the inside."

"Let's look under the light. . .can you see,
through my thinning hair, a bruise?"

"No. Whoever bopped you used something heavy and
soft and your hair's not thinning."

"Yeah, like a leather bag full of buckshot. It's
also called a blackjack."

Jim said it was madness not to call the police. Mary
gripped the sides of her head with her hands, working her fingers in
and out. She was about to cry. She was scared plenty.

"Jesus, Charlie, they wanted to kill you. They
tried to kill you."

"Now listen," I said, exchanging the toddy
mug for one with hot coffee, "everybody shut up and listen. Mr.
X thinks he did me in. So be it. It's my guarantee of safety,
Tomorrow the two of you are going back up to Gloucester looking for
me. You're going to ask around the Schooner Race. . .describe me to
the owners and patrons. You're going to find the Scout and have the
police tow it, or help you start it. Make a big deal about the fact I
haven't shown up. The Gloucester police will do the rest. Sooner or
later Dan Murdock and Company will get the word: I'm gone. . ."

"Who the hell is Dan Murdock?"

I told them, and Jim was all for making a beeline
straight for him. But of course, I explained, their picking him out
would refute my death, since how on earth would they have known about
Murdock unless I told them?"

Jim left surreptitiously ten minutes later. After
dosing, myself with aspirin, I went to bed.

It was 3:30 next afternoon when Jim dropped Mary off
at the front door. She found me in the sunporch smoking a Cuesta Rey.
I had slept till noon, waking only to see Mary off at ten.

"Well?"

"The entire town of Gloucester thinks you're
dead. . .or probably dead."

"Excellent, my love. And surely certain
interested parties now know I'm dead. They're only waiting for my
bloated carcass to surface in the putrid water of Gloucester Harbor.
And if the body is never found, so much the better—they'll think
they're home free."

"Who are they and what are they doing?"

"That's what I'm going to find out. One thing
there's no mistaking now, though, is that somebody really tried to
kill me. To kill in a manner remarkably similar to the way in which
Allan Hart died." ~

"Well—you're going to forget the whole thing,
Charlie, right now. We've got, with luck, twenty-five good years left
on this planet. I don't want to spend mine with a bloated corpse."

"Tell me what happened."

"Jim and I went to that bar. One of the
bartenders remembered you—he said you were a good fighter for an
old guy."

"Bless his heart."

"So we pretended to be really upset of course. .
. and I think we did a good job of it. The whole place is worried,
and people are asking around if anyone's seen you. Then we just
happened to find the Scout. It was still where you said it would be.
The keys were nowhere to be found, so the police helped us get a new
key—don't ask me how. It'll work, they said, at least until I can
have another made. Then we went to the station and I filled out a
form and answered a whole bunch of questions about your appearance,
habits, etc., and now they want me to send them a picture."

"Perfect."

"No it isn't, you dope. They're going to get in
touch with Brian Hannon."

"Uh oh. Oh boy. I should have thought of that."

"Yes you should have. In fact I'm surprised
Brian hasn't been over here yet. . ."

"He may have been. I heard the doorbell once,
and the phone's rung on and off too. But according to Plan A, I
haven't stirred."

"Well you'll have to talk with Brian. I think
it's a crime, isn't it, to falsify a disappearance?"

"Hmmmm. I think you're right. It's certainly
frowned on."

"And what are you going to tell him?"

"I'm not sure I'm going to tell him anything,
and I'll tell you why: I have—really, truly, officially—nothing
to go on but observations, hunches, and my near-death by murder."

"You've got to be kidding."

"No: While a lot of what I've found out is
suspicious, there's no hard proof of any of it. Did Allan drown
accidentally or not? Who knows for sure? Are the missing
Windhover
and the phantom boat
Penelope
one and the same? Maybe. Maybe not."

"Look, Charlie, somebody tried to kill you—"

I rubbed the bean with my cast. I was in truly great
shape: broken wrist, black eye, cracked ribs, and a bruised brain
bucket.

"I've been thinking that over too, Mary. Listen:
just before I got mugged and dumped, I was in a bar fight. A nasty
scuffle in which I figured prominently—not of my own choice—and
in which several men were severely beaten and people were arrested.,
Don't you see how most cops would suspect that what happened forty
minutes later was merely a continuation of the fight inside?"

"You mean somebody getting even with you?"

"Sure. I know I clipped somebody: a good one on
the side of his head with my cast. He must not be overly fond of me."

"Maybe he's the one who tried to kill you."

I considered this possibility, but later rejected it.
The clientèle of the Schooner Race was a rough slice of humanity,
but I doubted if the patrons would stoop to murder from behind.
Several people had been pretty beat up in the light, but nobody was
stabbed. Yet every person I saw there had a knife of some kind on his
belt. No. Logic led me away from that fork in the road. On the other
hand, there was Danny Murdock. Certainly he'd be interested in my
demise. So would the person who paid him to falsify the carpenter's
certificate. And he'd made a phone call just before the fight broke
out. Then afterward lounged about in front of the bar where I'd be
sure to see him. Another possible scenario began to emerge: